Build:Mechanist - Celestial Alacrity Support

This is a test build. You may comment and rate it.

Focused on: Condition damage, Healing and Support

Designed for: Fractals and Raids

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on June 15, 2023.

Overview

A flexible 'do it all' build for Mechanist that's easy to use and can perform multiple roles. Good for open world, story, fractals, strikes, and most raids; shouldn't be brought to raids where Toughness is a factor. The build brings either alac+solid dps (~15K) with 100% burn/bleed duration and 67% confusion duration, or alac+healing with 70% boon duration, all in the same gear via skill swaps. Extra tanky due to celestial stats so great for beginners. Jack of all trades, master of none.

The draw of this build is it's easy to do 'well' whether solo or while filling a group's need for Alac in either dps or support with minimal tweaks in one set of gear. As an added benefit, Celestial gear is what you're given on boost and Traveler runes are very cheap, making the build very accessible to players new to engineer that have a boost available. Specialized builds will outperform this build for their niche, but the draw of this build is ease of use and flexibility.

As with other celestial builds, you have great freedom to adjust how much you want to focus on damage or support.

Skill Bar

Mace/Shield

Utility

Hybrid DPS or Hybrid Heal?

The above setup is just one option that provides a mixture of damage and heal utilities. Med Kit is the obvious choice for any heal build, and Elite Mortar Kit provides both healing and damage via Elixir Shell and Poison Gas Shell respectively.

Healing
Elixir Gun and Barrier Signet are the best support choices. Elixir Gun provides the most healing, and Barrier Signet can provide a good amount of barrier to mitigate incoming attacks while also blocking projectiles.

DPS
For damage, Flamethrower and Grenade Kit offer the highest DPS (Flamethrower is slightly higher than Grenade Kit), though between them and Elite Mortar Kit there won't be much time left for healing.

Shift Signet provides almost the same damage and allows for much more time to focus on support, while also being a very useful emergency teleport/stun break.

Superconducting Signet is an option if you want to avoid kits, but is less DPS than the other options. Leave it on passive.

Specializations

• Mech Arms: Single-Edge Cutters could be taken for more damage if you don't need to provide all 25 stacks of Might to your subgroup.

Specialization Variants

For more healing, replace the Inventions traitline with Alchemy:

Dropping Inventions removes your ability to provide Protection via shield skills, so Alchemy is a better fit when using offhand Pistol. Alchemy also enhances Med Kit, making it better for burst healing.

Equipment

Head
Celestial

Shoulders
Celestial

Chest
Celestial

Hands
Celestial

Legs
Celestial

Feet
Celestial

Backpiece
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Mace
Celestial

Pistol
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Shield
Celestial

Sigil

Rune
x6

Rune Variants

Nothing can replace the healing ability of Rune of Superior Rune of the Monk, so it makes more sense to focus on the boon duration or damage aspects.

Rune of Superior Rune of the Traveler provides a lot of extra boon duration without sacrificing too much damage.

Rune of Superior Rune of the Elementalist is the highest DPS option.

Other all-stat runes are also possibilities, such as Rune of Superior Rune of the Tempest, Rune of Superior Rune of Divinity or Rune of Superior Rune of Leadership.

Usage

Alacrity

Both versions can produce a lot of alacrity via barrier generation using Mech Frame: Channeling Conduits, which also gives you access to Crisis Zone for a large amount of Alac at once. Keeping alac uptime via barrier comes from using these skills regularly:

• Mace auto chain
• Mech auto chain with Mech Core: Barrier Engine
• Barrier Signet
• Barrier Burst

Defiance Bar

Whether you're playing heal or dps you should know which skills will hurt the blue bar:

• DPS: Rocket Fist Prototype, Air Blast as well as Glue Shot and Smoke Vent
• Heal: Rocket Fist Prototype, Magnetic Inversion, Static Shield, Throw Shield

DPS Skill Usage

For alac-dps, run the Sinister Mace/Pistol weapons and these skills:

DPS Priority:

• Swap to Flamethrower to drop Napalm and Flame Blast when Napalm is up IF the target will remain stationary
• Use Rocket Fist Prototype and Blowtorch off cooldown (they have the same cooldown)
• Rolling Smash and Superconducting Signet off cooldown when available (make sure the mech is in position to hit)
• Mace auto chain (you have +67% condi duration so you'll be providing alac&barrier while also dropping confusion stacks on the target)
• If you're doing organized content, your primary job is providing alacrity - don't forget about it!

Defense/Zergs: For crowds, you can camp Flamethrower to tag. If Barrier Signet and mace autos aren't enough defense, swap to flamethrower for Smoke Vent (aoe blind) or Air Blast (aoe knockback). Rectifier Signet is a strong personal heal, and Overclock Signet can be used to re-summon the mech if something goes wrong, as it has a tendency to get instagibbed in some scenarios.

Solo/open world: For more damage you can use Mech Frame: Conductive Alloys to pump up the mech's condi damage and add another damage skill - at the cost of generating alacrity. Only advised in solo scenarios.

Heal Skill Usage

For alac-heal, weapon-swap to Celestial mace/shield and change your utility skills. Slot in Med Kit, replace Flamethrower with Elixir Gun, and slot Elite Mortar Kit as shown below. You can also replace Superconducting Signet with an elixir or turret of choice.

Heal Priority:

• Mace auto chain constantly pulses barrier&alac to your group - if not doing something else, do Mace auto!
• Barrier Signet & Mech abilities as you deem appropriate
• Big heals: Elixir Gun 5, Mortar Kit 5, Med Kit 4
• Useful: Med Kit 5 (regen), Med Kit 2 (regen), Med Kit 1 (top-off aoe)

Closing Thoughts

You could easily specialize further in either direction - "Why didn't you X" will certainly be a reaction to this build from experienced players. I have been using this build regularly in strikes, T4's, and the EOD metas because it brings a needed buff (Alac), can flexibly swap between dps and healing, more than holds its own in the open world/story, and is relatively easy to learn and do well with. More specialized builds will perform better at various facets; this build is a jack of all trades.